Kat pushed the last of the cottage cheese and shrimp
sandwiches into the cool box and slammed the van door shut. As if her life
wasn’t enough of a disaster zone as it was – no money, lousy job, losing
Nathan, having to move back home to live with her parents – now this had to go
and happen.

Cringing as a van full of builders stopped at the nearby
traffic lights, Kat braced herself for the inevitable. After the standard-issue
wolf whistles had drifted across from their van, next came the leered,
“Wouldn’t argue with that, love!” as one of them nodded towards her sparkling
clean van, parked neatly at the curb. The words “A Bit of Crumpet on the Road”
emblazoned down the side in deep purple, glittery lettering. Not for the first
time Kat cursed her boss Janice for calling her bakery-cum-deli by that name.

Kat sighed, well it certainly drew comments from the public
and from their customers, not always welcome ones, but as Janice was always
keen to point out, any kind of publicity and attention was, in her eyes, good
publicity and attention.

Pulling her navy and white striped apron more tightly around
her T-shirt and shorts, Kat ignored the builders and climbed into her van to
begin that morning’s deliveries. As she indicated to pull out into the busy
street in Luisborough, she mulled over the bad news – that she was to add the
controversial Netherton Meadows housing development to her daily sandwich
round.

Netherton Meadows. Yippee. If Summer found out, she’d surely
be ostracised for fraternising with the environmental enemy. This was a
development that pretty much everyone in Luisborough had fought against for
getting on towards a year. Everyone hated the
Netherton Meadows developers. Except, it seemed, Janice, who was perfectly
happy to, in her words, ‘supply yummy builders with yummy sandwiches.’

Lost in thought, Kat just managed to spot the approaching
traffic lights had turned to red and hastily slammed a foot on the brake. The
van lurched to a halt and several boxes of crisps and one of the cool boxes in
the back tipped over. Damn. It was shaping up to be one of those days.

Two hours later Kat had visited all her usual drops, was
extremely hot and bothered, and could put off going to Netherton Meadows no
longer.

Driving through the assorted vans, machinery and portacabins
Kat parked next to a building marked as being the Site Office and hit the
button on the dashboard. Tinkling chimes filled the air as Kat climbed from the
driver’s seat and made to open the back doors of the vehicle. It was
embarrassing enough that the van had the company name in large lettering along
its side but, just to make sure that it received maximum exposure – and
achieved maximum embarrassment – Janice had had some irritating chimes fitted
to the vehicle too. Kat was under strict instructions to sound the chimes when
she called at all of the sites where people came out to the van; such as they
were about to at Netherton Meadows.

A man came down the steps of the office with a grin on his
face and walked towards her. “Hi, you must be Kat.” He wedged a clipboard under
his left arm and offered a hand to shake. “I’m Alex. Project manager for the
site.”

“Hi,” mumbled Kat, spotting a group of hard-hat-clad
builders advancing towards her with hungry expressions on their faces.

“Right, lads,” Alex turned towards the men. “This is Kat and
she’s very kindly agreed to venture onto this site to bring you all your lunch.
Don’t give her any hassle, OK?”

The men laughed and then nodded. “Sure, Alex. You’re the
boss.”

Fifteen minutes later it seemed that all of the team at the
development had made their sandwich, crisp and drink selections and sloped off
to devour them in the sunshine. Only one of the builders, a portly man who must
have been twenty years Kat’s senior, had pushed the boundaries a little,
despite Alex’s earlier warning. As he’d selected a smoked salmon and cream
cheese roll – a choice that had surprised Kat somewhat, having pegged him as a
ham and cheese kind of guy – he’d asked Kat if she’d fancy joining him for a
drink sometime. She’d politely declined his offer, saying that she had a
boyfriend. No need to tell him that, technically, she and Nathan were no longer
an item. No need to tell him why either.

------------------

Author bio:

Zanna Mackenzie lives in the UK with her husband, 4 dogs, a
vegetable patch that’s home to far too many weeds and an ever expanding library
of books waiting to be read.

Being a freelance writer and editor of business publications
is her ‘day job’ but, at every opportunity, she can be found scribbling down
notes on scenes for whatever novel she’s working on. She loves it when the
characters in her novels take on minds of their own and start deviating from
the original plot!

Formerly a travel agent and therapist (she has
qualifications in clinical aromatherapy, crystal healing, naturopathic
nutrition and herbalism) she loves walking the dogs and gardening – that’s when
she’s not writing or reading!

Zanna has written two published novels, The Love Programme (Astraea
Press) and How Do You Spell Love? (Crooked Cat Publishing) and both were published
in early 2013. Her next book, If You Only Knew, will be published by Crooked Cat on Feb 7th 2014.